Innovative Changes Brewing at Ariba?

In the coming weeks and months at Ariba, I suspect we'll begin to see a number of management and staffing changes designed to spur some serious innovation in a company that could become the ten-ton gorilla of the sector -- maybe even a nimble on-demand gorilla -- if it was less risk averse than it has been in recent years. For example, I recently learned last week from a couple of third-parties that a few friends and colleagues whom I respect quite a bit would be joining the solutions provider -- not to mention some other promotions in the management ranks. It's all rather new and it appears to be a fluid and unfolding environment at the moment. But one prediction for the company which you can take to the bank is that the network will increasingly play an important role for a variety of emerging community and on-demand business models. I also expect that in the future we'll see Ariba as a provider that finally figures out how to best bring together services, software, and contextual insight/information around a set of offerings outside of just sourcing. The only question is how long it will take and whether Oracle will have acquired them by then, which is a rumor that seems to surface every quarter or two.